United Nations Development Programme

Our Stories

In the village of Chundu in Zimbabwe’s border district of Hurungwe, Mrs. Ellen Kunje has seen some heartening changes. In an area prone to malaria epidemics, Mrs. Kunje’s family and home have remained free from the disease.
Thanks to a new malaria control programme, she was given a long-lasting insemore

Esnart Siandavu, 49, is engaged in a passionate discussion with a group of farmers on how to grow better crops. Over the past 10 years, their Southern Zambian village of Muyumbela has been prone to extreme weather events such as floods and droughts.
Crops and cattle have been destroyed, eliminating more

In 2004, a 34-year-old widow in Congo named Maman Miriam* was raped by three armed men who slashed her genitals with a knife, leaving her with physical and emotional scars. She felt completely abandoned and unable to care for her three children.
“I felt worthless,” Maman Miriam says, thinking back. more

Just a few years ago, Indonesian housewife Ibu Odah had little knowledge of legal affairs. Now, the mother of two is at the forefront of the fight against domestic violence in the remote island of Ternate, in the North Moluccas province of Indonesia.
With the knowledge and expertise that she has acqmore

Torah, a construction worker in search of a new job and better prospects, was travelling west into Iran from Afghanistan. His second day on the move, he was hit with fever and chills, then excruciating pain – the first signs of malaria.
He asked locals for help and was referred to Sadegh, a volunteemore

The village of Kazybek, at the foot of the mountains in Naryn province, Kyrgyzstan, endures extremely harsh winters, with temperatures averaging around -20Cº and sometimes dropping as low as -40Cº.
“Previously, the kindergarten was only open during the warmer seasons and closed for nearly five monthmore

Marat*, a 38-year old father and husband, learned that he was HIV positive while undergoing drug detox in 2009. Pre and post-test counselling wasn’t common in Kyrgyzstan at the time, so Marat assumed that “HIV positive” meant good news.
Once he understood the diagnosis, Marat refused the treatments more

For Ki Her, the head of Kioutaloun village in mountainous northern Lao PDR, and 95 percent of the population who grow rice, the change in the weather over the past five years presents significant challenges.
With shorter but more intense rainy seasons, followed by longer dry seasons, farmers are stmore

After the fall of darkness in the town of La Cabirma, along the northern coast of the Dominican Republic, the muted glow of kerosene lamps and cuaba, or pine kindling, used to be the only source of light for residents. While oil for kerosene lamps was expensive, eating away at villagers' meagre earnmore

Eleven-year-old Mohamed Nasim, who is in sixth grade, wakes up at 5:30 every morning to take computer lessons in a makeshift classroom here in Borghaso village, Bamyan Province, northwest of Kabul. He draws a house in Microsoft paint, colors it, and types his name in the corner as his young teacher more